A UDP-based data transfer may provide data communication. UDP may be configured to add reliability control and congestion control. UDP may also be configured to provide a high performance transfer interface to distributed data-intensive applications over a wide area network. In instances where TCP seldom operates efficiently, UDP may provide an alternative to data transfer. UDP can also be used in other situations where TCP is not suitable (e.g., multimedia streaming, firewall data transfers, partial reliability, etc.).
The flow of data traffic within communications networks is predominantly based on the proprietary transmission control protocol (TCP). UDP data flows can share the available bandwidth fairly, while accommodating TCP data traffic. UDP operates at the application level. UDP supports user-defined congestion control algorithms with simple setup configuration. Users may modify UDP to suit various situations. UDP is defined as the user datagram protocol (UDP), which makes it easier to traverse data firewalls. In addition, multiple UDP flows can share a single UDP port, which is advantageous since a firewall can usually only open one UDP port for all UDP connections present.
As indicated above, implementing the UDP protocol can increase data communication efficiency in certain circumstances, however, integration with UDP and proprietary TCP communication networking protocols presents challenges when implementing such hybrid protocol suites. Additionally, maintaining an optimal communication session may require periodic changes to the existing communication sessions and data connections.